The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) and Lagos State Border Patrol Command at Seme said on Thursday that none of their officers was arrested for extortion on the border corridor with Benin Republic.
The rebuttal follows some media reports that a special squad of the Inspector-General of Police arrested the Immigration officers.
The reports alleged that they were arrested for extortion on Wednesday.
But DSI Enoch Aparshe, spokesman of the Seme Command of the NIS, stated that men of the two Commands were at their duty points along the Badagry-Seme Expressway.
Aparshe stated that the attention of the two Commands were drawn to Thursday’s publication in some newspapers that the I-G’s task force monitoring the Lagos-Badagry Expressway arrested Immigration officers along the corridor.
He said: “Sincerely, our officers were at their duty posts in Agbara, Gbaji and Seme and the patrol teams did their work without any molestation or harassment throughout August 9.
There was nothing like confrontation or arrest from any quarters or by the police task force.
“Nothing like a report of arrest of any officer from the two commands.”
Aparshe added that Comptroller Douglas Audu, Comptroller of Seme Command, and Comptroller Emmanuel Gbemudu, Comptroller, Lagos State Border Patrol, Seme, were taken aback by the publication.
Some media reports on Thursday stated that the I-G’s Squad chased and arrested some police and Immigration officers at some Seme-Badagry checkpoints on Wednesday.
The reports stated that the officers set up the checkpoints purely to extort motorists.
